Charatan’s Make Reuben Era Supreme Shape 44 Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

While Dunhill may be Britain’s most famous pipe brand, Charatan is not only older, but has the honor of being the first to have made its pipes entirely in-house. ‘Charatan’s Make’ referred to the fact that, at a time when other pipe companies were sourcing stummels and stems carved from other companies before assembling them in their factories and workshops, Charatan made every part of their pipes on the Charatan premises. So began a legacy of high-quality pipe-making under the Charatan name, one whose employees, at one time or another, included Joel Sasieni, and Ken Barnes and Barry Jones of James Upshall fame.

Though this Charatan bears Lane Ltd.’s circled “L” stamp, it is not, as is commonly mistaken, a Lane era pipe. In other words, it is not a pipe from the period between the early 1960s and late 1970s, during which Herman Lane owned the Charatan company. But it is from a time when Herman Lane was associated with Charatan. As evinced by the nomenclature and—crucially—the absence of a double comfort stem and shape code (here, 44) lacking a suffix denoting this absence (“X” during the Lane era), the pipe will instead have been made between 1955 and the early 1960s. During this time, F. Charatan & Son was owned and operated by Reuben Charatan, while Lane Ltd. was its sole US importer. US-bound pipes were, however, stamped with the Lane Ltd. “L” trademark. As the pipe lacks any variety of “MADE BY HAND” stamp, that should further narrow it down to a 1955-158 vintage.

But not only was this pipe produced under Reuben Charatan’s watch, there is also a strong possibility that it was turned by Reuben himself, who was, for a large part of his career, directly responsible for the manufacture of their “straight grain” pipes. Supreme grade pipes fell under this category and was, in fact, the highest grade awarded to Charatan’s straight grains in Reuben’s time. It’s certainly a beautiful pipe, a feat made all the more impressive due to its size—what with being a shape 44 “Giant Bent,” the name given by Charatan to their extraordinarily large bent billiard design. It’s also a fantastic piece of history, and for plenty more reasons than the ones mentioned, but, as I am already running out of space, I will have to leave all those for another time.

The condition is very good. Some darkening and general wear to the rim, including spots of minor charring on the inner lip, and a few slight handling marks.

 

Details:

Length: 7.3″ / 185.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.84 / 21.33mm

Bowl Depth: 1.89″ / 48.00mm

Weight: 4.2oz / 120g